“I WANT THEM TO GET USED TO PARLORS.”
“Those two people can think and talk of nothing but those dreadful
boys,” said Gracie to herself, half annoyed and wholly interested.
She found herself that very evening turning over the music, with the
wonderment in her mind as to what she could sing that they would be
likely to care for, provided one of them appeared, which thing she did
not expect.
But I have not told you of all the discussions had that day. The boys
went their various ways, their minds also busy with the events of the
afternoon. Dirk Colson and Stephen Crowley went off together; not that
they were special friends, but their homes lay near together. For the
distance of half a block they walked in silence; then Stephen Crowley
spoke his mind:--
“Nimble Dick wasn't near as smart to-day as he thinks he was, accordin'
to my way of thinkin'.”
“He was meaner than dirt!” burst forth Dirk, fiercely. “To go back on
her like that, after she had saved us from a row with the police, ain't
what I believe in. Why couldn't he have picked up the rag, seeing she
wanted him to? That's what _I_ say. I'd a done it myself if she had give
me the chance.”
“That there Dick Bolton can be too mean for anything when he sets
out,” said Stephen, with a grave air of superiority. “I don't go in for
anything of that kind myself. We wasn't none of us much to boast of;
but Dick, he went too fur. I say, Dirk, what do you s'pose all that yarn
means about to-morrow night? And what be we goin' to do about it? Dick,
he said it was all a game to get hold of us somehow, and he wasn't goin'
to have nothin' to do with it.”
Had Stephen Crowley desired exceedingly to secure Dirk's vote in favor
to the proposed entertainment he could not, at that moment, have chosen
a better way. Dirk tossed his thick mat of black hair in a defiant
fashion and answered:--
“He needn't have a thing to do with it, so far as I care. I don't know
who'll miss him; but if he thinks he's got all the fellows under his
thumb, and they're goin' to do as he says, I'll show him a thing or two.
_I'm_ a goin' to-morrow night. I don't care what it is, nor what it is
for. She was nice and friendly to us to-day, and I'm willin' to trust
her to-morrow. I shall go up there and see what she does want. It can't
kill a fellow to do that much.”
“Then I'm a goin', too,” declared Stephen, with decision. “Dick, he
thinks there won't none of us go if he don't; and I'd just like to show
him that he must get up early in the mornin' if he wants to keep track
of us.”
If Dirk Colson needed anything to strengthen his resolution, there was
material in that last sentence which supplied it. He had long
chafed under the control of Dick Bolton; here was a chance to assert
superiority. He even, just at that moment, conceived the brilliant idea
of supplanting Dick--running an opposition party, as it were.
What if he should get every fellow in the class to promise to go, and
Dick, the acknowledged leader, should find himself left out alone in the
cold. The thought actually made his grim face break into a smile. Thus
it came to pass that the most efficient worker for the success of the
Monday evening entertainment, so far at least as securing the presence
of the guests, was Dirk Colson.
In Mr. Roberts' mansion preparations for receiving and entertaining the
hoped-for guests went briskly forward. Preparations which astonished the
young guest already arrived.
“Are you really going to let them come in here?” she asked, as she
followed Mrs. Roberts through the elegant parlors, and watched her
putting delicate touches here and there.
“Certainly; why not? Don't you open your parlors when you receive your
friends?”
“I don't think we have such peculiar friends on our list,” Gracie said,
with a little laugh; and then, “Flossy, they will spoil your furniture.”
“If one evening in the Master's service will spoil anything it surely
ought to be spoiled,” Mrs. Roberts answered, serenely.
“But, Flossy,”--with a touch of impatience in her voice,--“what is the
use? Wouldn't the dining-room answer every purpose; be to them the most
elegant room they ever beheld, and be less likely to suffer from their
contact?”
The busy little mistress of all the beauty around her turned to her
guest with a peculiar smile on her face, half mischievous and wholly
sweet, as she said:--
“I want them to get used to parlors, my dear; they may have much to do
with them, as well as with dining-rooms.”
“They are more likely to have to do with penitentiaries and prisons,”
Gracie said; but she abandoned discussion, and gave herself to the
pleasure of arranging lonely flowers in their lovely vases.
There was a divided house as to the probability of the guests
appearing,--Mr. Roberts inclining to the belief that some of them would
come, while Gracie was entirely skeptical. Mrs. Roberts kept her own
counsel, neither expressing wish nor fear, but steadily pushing her
preparations.
As a matter of fact, the entire seven appeared together, promptly, as
the clock struck eight.
At the last moment Dick Bolton, the usual leader, finding himself in
a minority of one, not to be outwitted, protested that he had not the
least notion of staying away; of course he was going, and good-naturedly
joined the group.
I wonder if you have the least conception of how those boys looked? The
ideas of some people cannot get below nicely-patched clothes, carefully
brushed boots, clean collars, and neatly arranged hair.
Clean collars! Not a boy of them owned a collar. No thought of brushing
their worn-out, unmended boots ever entered their minds. Their clothes
were much patched, but in many places needed it still.
Stephen Crowley had made a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to put his mass
of hair in order. Most of the others had not thought even of that. Why
should they? Poor Dirk, you will remember, if he had thought of it, had
no comb with which to experiment. It is doubtful if many of the others
were any better off in this respect.
Imagine the seven standing, a confused, grinning, heap, in the centre of
Mrs. Roberts' large and brilliantly-lighted hall!
She came forward to welcome them, shaking hands, though they made no
attempt to offer a hand in greeting. She had to grasp after each. She
essayed to introduce Gracie; not one of them attempted a bow.
“Come this way,” Mrs. Roberts said, “and take seats.” Then she led the
way into the long, bright, elegantly-furnished, flower-decked room.
They followed her in a row. Midway in the room they made a halt. They
caught a view of themselves--full length at that--revealed by the great
mirrors. They had never seen themselves set in contrast before. They
could not sit in a row, for the easy chairs and sofas, though plentiful,
had the air of having been just vacated by people who had left them
carelessly just where they had chanced to sit.
It required diplomacy to seat those boys. When at last Stephen Crowley
dropped into one of the great pillowy chairs, he instantly sprang up
again, and looked at it doubtfully.
Was the thing a trap? How far down would it sink with him? This was
too much for Nimble Dick, even under the present overpowering
circumstances--he laughed. His hostess blessed him for that laugh. The
horrible stiffness was somewhat broken, and all were seated.
Just at that moment came Alfred Ried, hurriedly, like one who had
intended promptness and missed it.
“All here ahead of me!” he exclaimed, “Mrs. Roberts, I beg your pardon.
At the last moment I went in search of Dr. Everett; there was serious
illness in a house next door, and I happened to know just where he was.”
During this address he was shaking hands with his hostess, his manner
easy and graceful, as one used to it all. Then he crossed the room, that
wonderful room, treading down those flowers on the carpet as though he
had no fears of breaking their stems.
“Good evening, Miss Dennis,” he said, and he was bowing in a manner that
Dirk Colson was confident he could imitate. Then he turned to the boys,
shaking hands:--
“How are you, Haskell? By the way, Crowley, I called on you to-day at
the office; sorry not to find you in.”
“Mrs. Roberts, allow me?” And he wheeled one of the easy chairs to the
spot where that lady was standing.
“How well he enters into the thing,” said Gracie Dennis to herself,
looking on in admiration at this young man, who, still so young, was
adapting himself to circumstances that might well have embarrassed older
heads than his. He plunged into talk with the boys, making them answer
questions. He had come but a few moments before from Mark Calkins',
stopped there with a message from Dr. Everett; and these boys knew Mark
and Sallie and the worthless father, and all the more or less worthless
neighbors who ran in and out, and young Ried had a dozen questions to
ask. His quick-wittedness, and the ease with which he made talk to these
young men who lived in such an utterly different world from himself,
surprised his hostess very much.
Even she did not know to what an exalted pitch his enthusiasm and
excitement reached; though he had flashed a pair of most appreciative
eyes on her when she gave him her invitation for the evening. Here was
actually his sister Ester's darling scheme being worked out before his
eyes! Not only that, but he was being called upon to help. Ester had
wanted him to grow up to undertake just such efforts as these; and only
last week they had seemed to him so altogether good and noble and so
impossible to try. Yet here he was helping try them! No wonder Alfred
Ried could talk.
It had been determined in family council that Mr. Roberts must absent
himself. He was in the house, indeed--no further away than the library,
ready for call in event of an emergency; but it was judged that another
stranger, and such a formidable one as the head of the house, must be
avoided for this one evening. As for Mr. Ried, _would_ they remember
that he was not much older than some of them, and that he was not a
rich young man living on his income, but was earning his living by daily
work? and would they note the contrast between themselves and him? This
was what their hostess wondered. A few moments and then came a summons
to the dining-room. Seated at last, though one of the poor fellows
stumbled over a chair, and barely saved himself from falling.
If you could have seen that dining-table, the picture of it would have
lingered long in your memory. The whitest and finest of damask table
linen; napkins so large that they almost justified Dick Bolton's
whisper, “What be you goin' to do with your sheet?” china so delicate
that Gracie Dennis could not restrain an inward shiver when any of the
clumsy fingers touched a bit of it, and such a glitter of silver as even
Gracie had never seen before.
One thing was different from the conventional tea-party. Every servant
was banished; none but tender eyes, interested in her experiment, and
ready to help it on, should witness the blunders of the boys. So
the hostess had decreed, and so instructed Alfred and Gracie. The
consequence was that Alfred himself served the steaming oysters with
liberal hand, and Gracie presided over jellies and sauces, while Mrs.
Roberts sugared and creamed and poured cups of such coffee as those
fellows had never even _smelled_ before. If you think they were
embarrassed to the degree that they could not eat, you are mistaken.
They were street boys; their lives had been spent in a hardening
atmosphere. Directly the first sense of novelty passed away, and their
poorly-fed stomachs craved the unusual fare served up for them, the
fellows grinned at one another, seized their silver spoons, and dived
into the stews in a fashion that would have horrified every servant in
the house.
How they ate! Oysters and coffee and pickles and cakes and jellies!
There seemed no limit to their capacities; neither did they make the
slightest attempt to correct their table manners. None of them paid any
outward attention to their “sheets,” although Alfred and Gracie spread
theirs with elaborate care; they leaned their elbows on the table, they
made loud, swooping sounds with their lips, and, in short, transgressed
every law known to civilized life. Why not?
What did they know about civilized life?
Nevertheless, not one movement of young Ried escaped the notice of some
of them.
He tried still to carry on a conversation; though the business of
eating was being too closely attended to on all sides to let him be very
successful.
Gracie studied _him_, and was not only interested in his efforts, but
roused to make some attempts herself. What could she talk about with
such people? School? The Literary Club? The last concert? The course
of lectures? The last new book that everybody was reading? No, not
everybody; assuredly not these seven.
On what ground _was_ she to meet them?
Yet talk she must and would. Mr. Ried should see that she at least
_wanted_ to help.